The Trust was estabished on 13 September 2005 with the aim to protect and enhance the special landscape of high wildlife, archaeological and literary importance between Coate Water Site of Special Scientific Interest and the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Once again Swindon Borough Council is proposing policies in their Swindon Core Strategy that would blight the landscape east of Coate Water.

Here are some notes to help you respond to the Council’s preferred option of Coate/Badbury Wick (“Commonhead”) for development of 750 houses and 15 hectares of industrial landuse, followed by a sample letter that you might send to the council instead of using their glossy response sheet. (The forms are available at the council offices and libraries or at Swindon Core Strategy along with all the documentation [and online response pages]. Completed forms to: Forward Planning Group, Freepost SCE5251, Swindon Borough Council, Premier House, Station Road, Swindon, SN1 1TZ and must arrive no later than 4.30pm on Monday 12th May 2008.)

Support Key Objective 5 to allocate land for a university campus at North Star. This objective is in line with government planning policy (PPS13) that encourages the siting of facilities of this nature at places that can be readily accessed on foot, by bicycle and by public transport. The objective is also in line with SBC policy to situate tertiary education in the town centre to aid its urban regeneration programme.

Object to Spatial Framework Preferred Option in para 19.11. Delete “Commonhead” as a preferred location for 750 houses and 15 hectares of employment land. Reason: Whilst appreciating that SBC must meet housing and employment land requirements set down in the emerging Regional Spatial Strategy for the south-west, there is no duty upon SBC to put forward sites that are not sustainable. Indeed, if SBC must accept the requirement to accommodate a further 37,000 houses in Swindon between 2006-2026, never was there a greater time in Swindon’s history to protect this most treasured landscape in the foothills of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty that stretches to Coate Water (the area missed national designation as an AONB in the 1970s because the building of the M4 motorway and A419 Trunk road at that time formed a “convenient line on the map” to limit the designation). On environmental, historic and literary grounds, the land between Coate Water and the Richard Jefferies Museum, stretching east-south-east to Liddington Hill, is of major archaeological importance – it is a Bronze Age gateway site to the Downs; it is of major literary significance – inspirational in the works of Richard Jefferies (who is still rated as one of Britain’s best nature writers) and Alfred Williams who shared a common passion for Liddington Hill and the views from it; and it is next to Coate Water Site of Special Scientific Interest and the Country Park; a major public amenity as well as a wild-life sanctuary.

Object to Para 20.24 – “Commonhead Preferred Option”.Reason: This option is in conflict with advice in para 23.23 that supports protecting and enhancing historic landscapes. Can there be any other landscape of greater historic importance in Swindon given its roots in pre-history and its cultural and literary importance associated with Richard Jefferies? The proposed development area includes key fields of significant archaeological importance to the north of Day House Lane opposite the Richard Jefferies Museum and Day House Farm that date back to the Neolithic period. The proposed development area also takes in fields of major Medieval archaeological significance at Badbury Wick. These fields were also extremely important to Richard Jefferies – he recorded the archaeology and many were noted as favourite “thinking” places.

The proposed development area includes Day House Copse, a local nature reserve that would be isolated from Coate Water restricting movement of terrestrial wild life species dependent on the link. The copse is an ancient oak woodland that features in Richard Jefferies writing (e.g. Greene Ferne Farm, Wood Magic).

SBC committed itself to the principle that if no university is based at Coate, there would be no houses. Following shortly after their promise that the only development in the area would be the hospital, SBC must uphold the “no university, no houses” rule.

Whilst supporting the protection of a buffer around Coate Water and incorporating what is now private farmland into the Country Park, the views from the park would still become urban in nature as a result of the morphology of the landscape. The hospital is clearly visible from Coate Water. There is no indication in the preferred option to indicate how proposed buffer land would be incorporated into the Country Park or how it would be obtained, protected and managed in perpetuity.

It is difficult to see how the views from the Downs can be “respected” if the fields are urbanised. The fields leading to Coate Water dominate the landscape particularly as viewed from Liddington Hill. The hospital is a major intrusion on the landscape from Liddington Hill.

Day House Lane has a unique rural quality and is used by walkers, joggers, ramblers, cyclists and horse-riders for recreation on a regular basis. The site is a gateway to the Downs. The route to Liddington Hill was inspirational to Richard Jefferies who walked it regularly from Coate Farm and it led to the production of his autobiographical work The Story of my Heart that has strong spiritual overtones.

The area identified includes land that has been used to bury waste that was never subject to regulation. It is contaminated and leaching pollutants to air, ground and water. The only appropriate after use of the site is for public open space or tree planting – not development.

We accept that land will be required at Commonhead for hospital expansion. Have all plans for a Park and Ride site at Commonhead now fallen? The Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust have bought the field earmarked for Park and Ride and they have no intention to sell it. Where does this leave SBC’s transport plan?

Development near Junction 15 of the M4 is inaccessible and remote from Swindon town centre. It cannot be accessed from the A419T or the M4. As such it is an unsustainable site that is unlikely to attract a bus service and will encourage car-based commuting.

Development of fields opposite the hamlet of Coate will exacerbate flooding of the existing buildings (some are below ground level) and there is a scheduled building next to the proposed development field that is also of major literary importance to Richard Jefferies.

Support 23-23 Historic Landscapes and Buildings options. Landscapes and buildings of importance to Richard Jefferies should be carefully preserved and enhanced for their cultural and historic quality.

I disagree with Swindon Borough Council’s draft spatial framework for the borough and its preferred option to allocate land at Coate/Badbury Wick (“Commonhead”) for the building of 750 houses and for 15 hectares of business use. This option should be deleted from the Swindon Core Strategy and a policy put in place that protects the high landscape value of the area.

I am one of 35,000 people who signed the Save Coate petition in order to protect open countryside between Coate Water and the Downs from development. Swindon Borough Council pledged that if no university wished to develop at Coate, there would be no houses built. Once again, assurances to protect this unique countryside are being broken and I have no faith that any buffer land left around Coate Water won’t become a building site when circumstances change.

The proposal conflicts with advice elsewhere in the Swindon Core Strategy that supports protecting and enhancing historic landscapes. Coate and Badbury Wick are steeped in history given their roots in pre-history. The significant cultural and literary importance of the landscape that influenced Richard Jefferies’ writing, is unique. Key fields of significant archaeological importance to the north of Day House Lane (opposite the Richard Jefferies Museum and Day House Farm) that date back to the Neolithic period are included in the proposed development area. The area also includes fields of major Medieval significance at Badbury Wick. Day House Copse, a local nature reserve and ancient oak woodland, would be surrounded by a housing estate isolating wildlife from Coate Water and the surrounding countryside. The views from the Downs and Coate Water cannot be “respected” if the fields are urbanised. The hospital is already a major blot on the landscape and we were assured that the hospital was a one-off building in this area. Day House Lane has a unique rural quality and it is used by walkers, joggers, ramblers, cyclists and horse-riders for recreation on a regular basis. Development near Junction 15 of the M4 is inaccessible and remote from Swindon town centre. It is unlikely to attract a regular bus service and will encourage car-based commuting.

I am appalled that Swindon Borough Council is proposing that land in this area should be developed further – this is nothing less than vandalism.